New owners of Carlsbad Mall have big plans for shopping center

Come Jan. 1, the Carlsbad Mall will be under new ownership and the community can expect future expansion and possibly brand-name stores, the soon-to-be new owners say.

The mall, currently owned by Carlsbad resident Mike Garringer, is being sold to fellow residents and business entrepreneurs Joe Brininstool and his wife, Jill Holt.

The couple says they plan to close the deal by month's end and take ownership at the first of the year.

The mall, built in the early 1990s, was originally owned by Robert Light, a local businessman and retired state legislator, who in turn sold it to Garringer in the late 1990s.

Brininstool said the purchase of the mall is part of the diversification of his and his wife's real estate holdings and commercial industrial development.

"It fits in with our business model with our properties," Brininstool said, explaining the mall will operate under RMI Properties LLC.

Brininstool and Holt also own BES Properties LLC and AMPI Development Corporation.

Asked why they decided to go into the mall business in addition to the already flourishing other businesses, Brininstool said: "We are committed to the growth of Carlsbad."

Holt said both she and Brininstool are aggressive in the development of their businesses and they are going to facilitate growth at the mall and build upon what Garringer has done do date.

So what can the public expect to see at the mall once it changes hands?

For starters, rue21, a national clothing store chain, is coming in, they said.

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The store chain was recruited by Garringer, but will sign the contract with RMI Properties, which will be headed by Holt.

"There is room for expansion in the front and back of the mall," Brininstool said. "One of our goals is to target a restaurant chain. We will build the restaurant to suit the restaurant developer. We can build what the restaurant needs in order for them to come to Carlsbad. Our plan is to build the restaurant in the front of the mall. Jill is a general contractor and developer and she can work with them. We want to get more popular stores, such as rue21, to come to Carlsbad."

Holt added: "We offer build-to-suit-leases, meaning that they tell us exactly what they want and then we build it for them and lease it to them."

Holt said they are hiring a general manager to manage their businesses and will also be setting up a website to get input from the Carlsbad public on what kind of stores they would like to see at the mall.

Brininstool said the financing for the purchase of the mall did not come from a local bank.

However, the bank behind their deal, FirstBank Southwest in Amarillo, Texas, is headed by Bobby Murray, a Carlsbad native who, until recently, served as president of Wells Fargo Bank in Carlsbad.

The couple said while they are strong advocates for keeping their business in Carlsbad, they went outside to obtain the financing due to Holt's and Garringer's association with a local bank as bank board members. They did not want their mall sale transaction and the financing to be a conflict of interest, they said.

In addition to their purchase of the mall, Brininstool and Holt also have holdings in Carlsbad that include a 38-acre industrial park on Airport Road and 25 acres they are developing in the Carlsbad Department of Development-owned Industrial Park near the airport. They also have developed properties in Texas.